The Times

Support for Hezbollah strengthens with every bombed Beirut building

Daniel McGrory 9 August 2006



With most nightclubs, bars, shops and cinemas closed and with few other distractions left to them, increasing numbers are turning to the internet to express their misery, hopes and worries. Contributors work by candlelight, their computers powered by batteries because much of the city is fortunate if it gets two hours of electricity. One site, called Electronic Lebanon, has had 2.5 million hits. Antiwar petitions and cartoons are exchanged by e-mail, along with photographs of Lebanon’s dead and injured. The bloggers also swap their black humour about how it feels to be Beiruti today. 

"Live blogging" from the warzone

Rhys Blakely 22 July 2006



“LIVE blogging” from the warzone emerged as the key weapon in the “electronic intifada” that erupted in Lebanon as Israel bombarded the country. In Beirut, residents were counting down the clock until today -the point at which Lebanese bloggers such as Hanady figured the last foreigners would have been evacuated. “By Saturday, there will only be those who have nowhere else to go,” he wrote. Beirut blogger Mazen Kerbaj created a more surreal piece of reportage: a music track using samples of Israeli attacks. “I recorded two hours of bombs + trumpet from my balcony yesterday night,” he wrote.